The fierce attitude of Viramontes’s Aztec warrior speaks to the heightened intensity of the pro-labor struggle when César Chávez initiated a new grape boycott in 1973. Viramontes, a Vietnam veteran, chose a martial subject to support Chicano rights. The warrior’s visceral spilling of sacrificial blood and the decorative splendor of his garments symbolically affirm the ethnic heritage shared by many field-workers.